Among all the curiosities however belonging to this wealthy and
illustrious family, the single one most prized is a well-known statue,
called in Catalogues by the name of the Fighting Gladiator, but
considered here at Rome as deserving of a higher appellation. They now
dispute only what hero it can be, as every limb and feature is
expressive of a loftier character than the ancients ever bestowed in
sculpture upon those degraded mortals whom Pliny contemptuously calls
_Hordiarij_, and says they were kept on barley bread, with ashes given
in their drink to strengthen them. Indeed the statue of the expiring
Gladiator at the Capitol, his rope about his neck, and his unpitied
fate, marked strongly in his vulgar features, exhibits quite a separate
class in the variety of human beings; and though Faustina's favourite
found in the same collection was probably the showiest fellow then among
them, we see no marks of intelligent beauty or heroic courage in his
form or face, where an undaunted steadiness and rustic strength make up
the little merit of the figure.
This charming statue of the prince Borghese is on the other hand the
first in Rome perhaps, for the distinguished excellencies of animated
grace and active manliness: his head raised, the body's attitude, not
studied surely, but the apparent and seemingly sudden effect of
patriotic daring.
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